Terry D wrote:I Feel Fine: Wow, you are one of those incredibly boring 'I have so little on I'll break the other persons post down and quote it piece-by-piece' types. Not withstanding the fact that in general engaging directly with a persons points legitimises them, in breaking mine down and presenting them you doubly legitimise them by having to make your argument leech parasitically off my own. We'll overlook that though. I'll just reiterate my argument in a continuous way because your leeched remarks are not holding much weight.
On top of everything else you now don't seem to understand the concept of "debate." All I'm doing is directly addressing what it is that I am arguing with, which is supposedly the point of a debate. I haven't leeched off anything you've written and I challenge you to show where I have. I'm willing and able to address your repetitious and exaggerated arguments, and that's what I will do. You haven't addressed many of my points, on the other hand, so perhaps your idea of a debate is to try to avoid having to deal with a direct challenge. Just like Larry Holmes, aren't you?
Before I get into this, one thing that I am noticing about this fruitless conversation that needs to be addressed up front is that, as usual, you are misreading. When I say "Ali" I am not necessarily referring to 70's Ali, which seems to be what you think I am doing. Ali adopted that name in 1964, and so when I use the name "Ali" I am talking about all of his fights that came after the first fight with Liston. You seem to be referring to the 70's version of him as "Ali" while calling any 60's incarnation of him "Clay", which is inaccurate. So I think that will clear up some minor confusion.
Terry D wrote:Ali in 1966 did not face a fighter of the style or calibre of Holmes. What he did do, though, was give away shots in this period, notably against Chuvalo. Perhaps to show his toughness but he was there to be caught. The same boxing style that he had in 1963 was still there and a class fighter like Jones had shown that he could be countered with the right hand. Holmes showed he could adapt as a fight wore-on and also counter with his own right hand so why not suppose that Clay would get hit by Holmes? Because Clay became impossible to hit then was forced into exile as the greatest ever example of boxing? Nonsense. His flaws were there throughout his pomp. A Holmes fight, rather than Cooper II, would have displayed this.
The problem with this logic, which I think should be evident, is that Holmes didn't fight anyone as good as Ali either. Its easy to say "Ali got hit by fighters who weren't as good as Holmes" but its even easier to say the opposite. Ali got hit in some fights, yes. But Holmes got hit in plenty of his own, which is a point that you have consistently ignored. I think the problem is that while I'm willing to address the fact that fights like Clay-Jones happened, you seem to be unaware of fights like Holmes-Weaver and Holmes-Snipes. Its easy to have a conversation when you're pointing out everything that happened to the other guy, but eventually you're going to have to explain how Holmes is going to avoid Ali's right when he couldn't avoid Norton's or Weaver's or Witherspoon's or even Spinks'.
Terry D wrote:You go on a little bit after this and see your bra, wasting a quote basically saying the points I made were correct. Eventually this line of acquiescence will cross over to all of my points as they are argued more reasonably. This will be further shown below.
I didn't acquiesce to anything, my little friend. I made the point two pages ago that I believed that Ali retained many of his flaws throughout his career (as Holmes did). You failed to read that and kept repeating this platitude, as you also do in this last post. I'm not conceding anything here because I've never thought otherwise. I'm simply pointing out your consistent failure to understand what you are reading.
As for boxing judges: I'm simply not naive about how boxing judges operate. I take it for granted that they often give faulty scores. I think its to a boxing fans peril if they spend all their time going through all the mistakes that judges make. I gave up on that a long time ago, just as I don't spend much time trying to understand the logic of the sanctioning bodies; as I said, I take it for granted that these people are likely going to get it wrong in some way. My hope is that they pick the right winner, because that's all I can really ask for considering the way judges tend to have screwy scorecards regardless of what result they come up with. If all three had given Clay every round, or if they had just as foolishly given the fight to Jones; neither would have any bearing on who I thought won the fight. When it comes to watching a fight, I simply decide for myself who I thought won, as I think most boxing fans do. I don't "make up" anything, I score a fight as I see it and I, along with a great deal of other people, saw Holmes lose to a 14-0 Witherspoon and a 16-0 Williams. Holmes' fans believe that he won, and that's to be expected. As for Doug Jones, he didn't throw enough punches and was out landed in many rounds. He hit Clay with right hands, sure, but he took plenty in return. I thought it was a close fight, but I think people are being quite generous to Jones when they suggest he somehow won six rounds. Were you watching the fight or listening to the New York crowd roar for their hometown fighter? Either way, if you thought Jones won six rounds then you are in no position to question my ability to score a fight.
I do appreciate your 180, though. One minute you're talking about how judges make mistakes, the next minute you're saying that I'm somehow wrong to conflict with the verdict of the judges in the Witherspoon and Williams fights. I suppose when Holmes wins the decision the judges can't be wrong, eh? That's definitely not what I would call "deep thinking."
And, again, we can wrangle to no end about how Clay took punches against Jones. I believe that a more mature Ali would not have taken as many punches, and moreover I know that Holmes throughout his career was prone to taking right hands against opponents who were not as good as Ali; so I return to the point that, while Holmes may land his right on Ali, Ali will be getting him right back, and more often.
I wouldn't put to much stock in Ali-Foster. I think its clear to most viewers that Ali toyed with him. There was one point where he literally stood still and let Foster hammer him with right hand after right hand. Holmes took plenty of right hands against Michael Spinks too; difference was Larry wasn't letting Mike do it, Spinks got threw on his own.
Your point about Holmes being a better inside fighter is barely worthy of a response. Compare Ali-Frazier III to whatever Holmes fight it is that you want to point to. Holmes would not survive a fight like that with someone like Frazier. You can repeat your "better fundamentals" mantra as many times as you like, but when it actually came time to step into the ring with someone like Frazier, Holmes' leaky defense would be exposed.
On that Frazier note: we again go into this idea that we're supposed to feel sorry for Holmes while we're supposed to look down on Ali for his supposed advantages. Fact is, Ali won the Gold Medal while Holmes didn't even make the Olympics. I don't view this as a negative for Holmes, my point is that the reason why Holmes was not in the spotlight in his formative years is because of this. What this also meant, however, was that Holmes was never going to get the same scrutiny as Ali, particularly as a young fighter. That is why we can focus so much on how many punches Clay was taking at 21, while no one is going to care if Holmes was taking punches at that age (not that we would know to begin with since I doubt many have seen his fights at around that time, I admit that I haven't) because its taken for granted that he would have been developing, as all fighters are at that age. What I especially reject is this rhetoric about how Holmes had to work on his craft and how he had such a tough road in comparison to Ali. Utter nonsense. Ali did not step into the ring one day and become Heavyweight champion either, he worked at it for years and developed and grew into the fighter he became. Holmes fans like to tout the idea that Holmes had a harder route but, frankly, he didn't. He didn't have to fight Liston at 22, he didn't have to go through a forced exile, he didn't have to take on Frazier and Foreman, and he didn't have to take on Norton and Shavers in his declining years.
It takes quite an imagination to make the claims you do about Norton. Norton did not have a harder time hitting a prime Holmes than he did hitting a 31 year old Ali in the second fight. Any simple minded person can point to the fact that Norton was able to land consistently on Ali. But you once again show either blatant bias or ignorance (or both) by glossing over the fact that Norton had just as easy a time landing on a prime Holmes. Its quite interesting how Holmes is supposedly the better technical fighter, and yet at his best he faired no better against Norton's offense than Ali did at 31. They both pulled out razor thin decisions, except Ali was fighting a better Norton and Norton was fighting a prime Holmes. And I don't think many of us on planet earth have to imagine what a prime Norton would do to a 34 year old Holmes.
I haven't "leeched" off any of your mediocre points. I think I've addressed them, while you've addressed few if any of my points. You can live in the fantasy world that fights like Holmes-Ocasio and Holmes-Cobb and Holmes-Bey provide for you, just as fights against weak opposition like Tyson-Biggs and Tyson-Tubbs and Tyson-Spinks reinforce the delusions in the minds of Tyson fans that Mike in his prime was the best ever. But I think its clear that if Holmes had been fighting Liston and Frazier and Foreman that he wouldn't have been avoiding too many more punches than Ali did. Ali was a more talented fighter than Holmes, with more toughness (as Ken Norton would attest to) and Ali would exploit the flaws in Holmes' style, which were there despite the petty whitewashing of Holmes' career by his fans. The guy got hit by fighters who were not as good as the guys Ali fought; period. I believe Ali-Holmes would be a tough, close fight. I would even say that Holmes has the ability to beat Ali on a given night. What I do believe is that Ali beats Holmes more times than Holmes beats Ali. What I also believe is that Holmes was not a fundamentally sound fighter; he was a fundamentally protected fighter who fought in a weak era. He got hit a lot when he fought elite fighters but, luckily, the late 70's and early 80's had few of those.
I look forward to more of your repetitious posts.
